Saturday, June 6, 2020
Taylor & Habibi: The Collapse of Global Cooperation under the WHO International Health Regulations at the Outset of COVID-19: Sculpting the Future of Global Health Governance
Allyn L. Taylor & Roojin Habibi have posted an ASIL Insight on The Collapse of Global Cooperation under the WHO International Health Regulations at the Outset of COVID-19: Sculpting the Future of Global Health Governance.
New Issue: Global Environmental Politics
- Kate J. Neville, Shadows of Divestment: The Complications of Diverting Fossil Fuel Finance
- Doris Fuchs, Bernd Schlipphak, Oliver Treib, Le Anh Nguyen Long, & Markus Lederer, Which Way Forward in Measuring the Quality of Life? A Critical Analysis of Sustainability and Well-Being Indicator Sets
- Michael J. Albert, Capitalism and Earth System Governance: An Ecological Marxist Approach
- Ina Möller, Political Perspectives on Geoengineering: Navigating Problem Definition and Institutional Fit
- Håkon Sælen, Under What Conditions Will the Paris Process Produce a Cycle of Increasing Ambition Sufficient to Reach the 2°C Goal?
- Barbara Saerbeck, Mareike Well, Helge Jörgens, Alexandra Goritz, & Nina Kolleck, Brokering Climate Action: The UNFCCC Secretariat Between Parties and Nonparty Stakeholders
- Sebastian Levi, Christian Flachsland, & Michael Jakob, Political Economy Determinants of Carbon Pricing
New Issue: International Journal of Human Rights
The latest issue of the International Journal of Human Rights (Vol. 24, no. 5, 2020) is out. Contents include:- Natalie Alkiviadou, Freedom of religion: lifting the veils of power and prejudice
- Paul Chaney, India at the crossroads? Civil society, human rights and religious freedom: critical analysis of CSOs’ third cycle Universal Periodic Review discourse 2012–2017
- Lucia Munongi & Jace Pillay, Protecting the rights of the girl child: implications for educational psychologists
- Francesca Capone, APDH and IHRDA v Mali: recent developments in the jurisprudence of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights
- Gauthier de Beco, Intersectionality and disability in international human rights law
- Ayushi R. Saxena, The candle burns: human rights violations of under trial prisoners in India with particular emphasis on Madhya Pradesh
- Vladislava Stoyanova, Common law tort of negligence as a tool for deconstructing positive obligations under the European convention on human rights
- Mohamed Badar & Polona Florijančič, Assessing incitement to hatred as a crime against humanity of persecution
- Elisabeth Bunselmeyer & Philipp Schulz, Quasi-experimental research designs as a tool for assessing the impact of transitional justice instruments
Friday, June 5, 2020
New Additions to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law
The Codification Division of the UN Office of Legal Affairs recently added lectures to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law Podcast Channel. Due to current circumstances, the AVL team can post these only to the podcast channel and not the website. The lectures were given by Manuel Rama Montaldo on “Aspectos conceptuales e históricos del proceso de codificación y de desarrollo progresivo del derecho internacional en la Naciones Unidas, con especial referencia a la labor de la Comisión de Derecho Internacional (Parte I, Parte II)” and Concepción Escobar Hernández on “El Tribunal Europeo de Derechos Humanos.”
New Issue: International Criminal Law Review
The latest issue of the International Criminal Law Review (Vol. 20, no. 3, 2020) is out. Contents include:- Mohamed Elewa Badar & Polona Florijančič, The Prosecutor v. Vojislav Šešelj: A Symptom of the Fragmented International Criminalisation of Hate and Fear Propaganda
- J.J. Smith, A Four-Fold Evil? The Crime of Aggression and the Case of Western Sahara
- Alison Bisset, And then Two Came Along at Once: Inter-State Cooperation on Core Crimes, the ilc and the Group of Core States
- Iryna Marchuk, Transitional Justice and a State’s Response to Mass Atrocity: Reassessing the Obligations to Investigate and Prosecute, written by Jacopo Roberti di Sarsina
Palmer: Adapting International Criminal Justice in Southeast Asia: Beyond the International Criminal Court
How is international criminal law adapted across time and space? Which actors are involved and how do those actors seek to prosecute atrocity crimes? States in Southeast Asia exhibit a range of adapted approaches toward prosecuting international crimes. By examining engagement with international criminal justice especially in Cambodia, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Myanmar, this book offers a fresh and comprehensive approach to the study of international criminal law in the region. It nuances categories of the 'global' and 'local' and demonstrates how norms can be adapted in multiple spatial and temporal directions beyond the International Criminal Court. It proposes a shift in the focus of those interested in international criminal justice toward recognising the opportunities and expertise presented by existing adaptive responses to international crimes. This book will appeal to scholars, practitioners and advocates interested in international criminal law, international relations, transitional justice, civil society, and law in Southeast Asia.
Wednesday, June 3, 2020
Davidson: Human Rights Realism
Natalie R. Davidson (Tel Aviv Univ. - Law) has posted Human Rights Realism (Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:
In the aftermath of gross human rights abuses, when, if at all, should we forego legal accountability? Human rights scholars debated this question in the 1980s and 1990s, in what was referred to as the “peace versus justice” debate. The “justice” side won the day in the human rights community, where the dominant position is that legal accountability is a necessary response to atrocity and cannot be limited by political considerations (a position I term “human rights absolutism”). However, this question has resurfaced in the twenty-first century, in intense debates with interlocutors outside the field of human rights. Faced with the development of international criminal justice, Alien Tort Statute litigation, and regional human rights court jurisprudence on the right to a remedy, courts, state officials and conservative scholars argue that legal accountability should be limited to avoid hampering states’ control of their internal affairs and international relations (a position I term “sovereigntism”). Some scholars take a middle ground, and argue that legal responses to gross human rights abuses should be limited only to avoid harm to peace or democratic decision-making. However, the latter have not yet offered a persuasive justification for their position, nor a rationale for distinguishing peace and democratic decision-making from other values advanced by sovereigntists as limits to accountability.
This article offers a new middle ground between sovereigntism and human rights absolutism, under a position it terms “human rights realism.” Drawing on American legal realism and grounded in human rights values, this approach mandates limiting legal accountability to avoid those consequences that threaten certain core human rights, and the article identifies armed conflict and economic inequality as relevant consequences. This approach overcomes both human rights absolutists’ denial of the politics of accountability mechanisms, and sovereigntists’ subordination of accountability to values other than human rights. Moreover, drawing on legal realist writing on the right-remedy relationship, this article offers a robust justification for accepting limitations to legal accountability across a wide range of mechanisms, and a principled framework for considering such limitations in light of evolving empirical evidence.
The argument is developed by revisiting the debate about universal civil jurisdiction, and expanding the analysis to international criminal law and regional court jurisprudence. The article shows that human rights realism offers not only a promising normative framework for integrating political considerations into human rights enforcement, but also that it sheds new light on recent developments such as African state threats of withdrawal from the International Criminal Court.
Conference: Virtual 114th ASIL Annual Meeting (Reminder)
The American Society of International Law's postponed 114th Annual Meeting is now a virtual event and will take place on June 25-26. The program is here. The Society has reduced all registration fees by 25 percent and has eliminated the fee for students altogether. Current registrants may request a refund of 25 percent of the fee they paid, but the Society hopes that those who are able will choose to donate that amount as a charitable contribution to help defray the costs the Society has incurred in creating the Virtual Annual Meeting.
New Issue: International Community Law Review
The latest issue of the International Community Law Review (Vol. 22, no. 2, 2020) is out. Contents include:- Ulf Linderfalk, The Emperor’s New Clothes – What If No Jus Cogens Claim Can Be Justified?
- Mohsen al Attar, TWAIL: A Paradox within a Paradox
- Meagan S. Wong, The Activation of the International Criminal Court’s Jurisdiction over the Crime of Aggression: International Institutional Law and Dispute Settlement Perspectives
- Maryam Malakotipour, The Chilling Effect of Indirect Expropriation Clauses on Host States’ Public Policies: a Call for a Legislative Response
New Issue: International Human Rights Law Review
The latest issue of the International Human Rights Law Review (Vol. 9, no. 1, 2020) is out. Contents include:
- Francesco Seatzu, The Interpretation of the American Convention on Human Rights through the Prism of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child: A Reality, A Promise, A Possibility, or A Problem?
- Jeremy Sarkin, Reforming the International Criminal Court (icc) to Achieve Increased State Cooperation in Investigations and Prosecutions of International Crimes
- Conrad Nyamutata, Do Civil Liberties Really Matter During Pandemics? Approaches to Coronavirus Disease (covid-19)
- Billy Holmes, Non-universal Human Rights? How Article 6 (2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Undermines Human Rights
- Md Al Ifran Hossain Mollah, Assessment into Feasibility of Ratifying the OP-icescr from the Context of Justiciability of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in Bangladesh
- Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Statement on the Covid-19 Pandemic and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
Tuesday, June 2, 2020
Tigre: Inter-American Court of Human Rights Recognizes the Right to a Healthy Environment
Maria Antonia Tigre (Global Network for the Study of Human Rights and the Environment) has posted an ASIL Insight on Inter-American Court of Human Rights Recognizes the Right to a Healthy Environment.
Forlati, Mbengue, & McGarry: The Gabčíkovo-Nagymaros Judgment and Its Contribution to the Development of International Law
The Gabčíkovo-Nagymaros Judgment is among the most influential pronouncements of the International Court of Justice. While the Court took an unusual approach to settling this dispute, it also adopted important stances on a number of complex issues of sustainable development and delicate problems of ‘general’ international law. It significantly contributed to the elucidation and consolidation of many rules pertaining to the law of treaties, the law of international responsibility, and their mutual relationship. The Gabčíkovo-Nagymaros Judgment and its Contribution to the Development of International Law offers a comprehensive analysis of both the management of this case and the substantive legal issues at stake. It also reappraises the Court’s findings in light of subsequent developments in the international legal order, focusing on the role of the ‘World Court’ in fostering such developments.
Monday, June 1, 2020
Peña: El derecho internacional y COVID19: derechos humanos
Sergio Peña (Universidad Mayor - Law) has posted El derecho internacional y COVID19: derechos humanos (Diario Constitucional, May 27, 2020). Here's the abstract:
Los derechos humanos en el derecho internacional y en el derecho nacional son para todos, ese es el resumen del documento interpretativo del Tratado Interamericano de Derechos humanos o Pacto de San José de Costa Rica. El documento titulado “Pandemia y Derechos Humanos en las Américas”, resolución 1 de 2020 de la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos humanos. Esta resolución enfrenta a las múltiples formas de justificación de los argumentos que buscan permitir actos estatales o privados que el Estado que afectan los derechos humanos y deben castigarse por el mismo Estado. Resulta fundamental comprender este documento como una fuente para enfrentar la pandemia, un “estándar” internacional aplicable a diversas materias, fundamental para quienes se enfrenten a este problema.
Mettraux: International Crimes: Law and Practice - Volume II: Crimes Against Humanity
Judge Mettraux's four-volume compendium, International Crimes: Law and Practice, will provide the most detailed and authoritative account to-date of the law of international crimes. It is a scholarly tour de force providing a unique blend of academic rigour and an insight into the practice of international criminal law. The compendium is un-rivalled in its breadth and depth, covering almost a century of legal practice, dozens of jurisdictions (national and international), thousands of decisions and judgments and hundreds of cases. This second volume discusses in detail crimes against humanity.
Berlin: Criminalizing Atrocity: The Global Spread of Criminal Laws against International Crimes
Why do countries adopt criminal legislation making it possible to prosecute government and military officials for human rights violations? Over the past thirty years, dozens of countries have prosecuted their own or other states' officials for past atrocities. In Criminalizing Atrocity, Mark Berlin tells the story of the global spread of national criminal laws against atrocity crimes - genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity - laws that have helped pave the way for this remarkable trend toward greater accountability. He traces the early 20th-century origins of national atrocity laws to a group of influential European criminal law scholars and explains the global patterns by which these laws have since spread.
Berlin shows that understanding why countries criminalize atrocities requires understanding how they do so. In many cases, criminalization has not been the result of concerted government initiative, but of inconspicuous choices made by technocratic legal experts who have been delegated authority to draft large-scale reforms to countries' national criminal codes. Drawing on research in comparative law and norm diffusion, Berlin explains how such reform projects prompt technocratic drafters to select legal ideas, like atrocity laws, that have been endorsed by their professional communities and deemed by drafters to be important features of a "modern" criminal code. To test this argument, Berlin draws on original quantitative and qualitative data, including in-depth case studies of Guatemala, Poland, Colombia, and the Maldives, and a new, comprehensive dataset tracking the global spread of atrocity laws since Word War II. The book's findings highlight the importance of professional communities in the modern renaissance of atrocity justice and the domestication of international legal norms.
Sunday, May 31, 2020
Stahn: Justice as Message: Expressivist Foundations of International Criminal Justice
International criminal justice relies on messages, speech acts, and performative practices in order to convey social meaning. Major criminal proceedings, such as Nuremberg, Tokyo, and other post-World War II trials have been branded as 'spectacles of didactic legality'. However, the expressive and communicative functions of law are often side-lined in institutional discourse and legal practice. This innovative work brings these functions centre-stage, developing the idea of justice as message and outlining the expressivist foundations of international criminal justice in a systematic way.
Professor Carsten Stahn examines the origins of the expressivist theory in the sociology of law and the justification of punishment, its articulation in practice, and its broader role as method of international law. He shows that expression and communication is not only an inherent part of the punitive functions of international criminal justice, but is represented in a whole spectrum of practices: norm expression and diffusion, institutional actions, performative aspects of criminal procedures, and repair of harm. He argues that expressivism is not a classical justification of justice or punishment on its own, but rather a means to understand its aspirations and limitations, to explain how justice is produced and to ground punishment rationales. This book is an invitation to think beyond the confines of the legal discipline, and to engage with the multidisciplinary foundations and possibilities of the international criminal justice project.
Call for Submissions: Melbourne Journal of International Law
The Melbourne Journal of International Law has issued a call for submissions for the second issue of its twenty-first volume. The call is here.
Zumbansen: The Many Lives of Transnational Law: Critical Engagements with Jessup's Bold Proposal
In 1956, ICJ judge Philip Jessup highlighted the gaps between private and public international law and the need to adapt the law to border-crossing problems. Today, sixty years later, we still ask what role transnational law can play in a deeply divided, post-colonial world, where multinationals hold more power and more assets than many nation states. In searching for suitable answers to pressing legal problems such as climate change law, security, poverty and inequality, questions of representation, enforcement, accountability and legitimacy become newly entangled. As public and private, domestic and international actors compete for regulatory authority, spaces for political legitimacy have become fragmented and the state's exclusivist claim to be law's harbinger and place of origin under attack. Against this background, transnational law emerges as a conceptual framework and method laboratory for a critical reflection on the forms, fora and processes of law making and law contestation today.
Di Blase & Vadi: The Inherent Rights of Indigenous Peoples in International Law
This book highlights the cogency and urgency of the protection of indigenous peoples and discusses crucial aspects of the international legal theory and practice relating to their rights. These rights are not established by states; rather, they are inherent to indigenous peoples because of their human dignity, historical continuity, cultural distinctiveness, and connection to the lands where they have lived from time immemorial. In the past decades, a new awareness of the importance of indigenous rights has emerged at the international level. UN organs have adopted specific international law instruments that protect indigenous peoples. Nonetheless, concerns persist because of continued widespread breaches of such rights. Stemming from a number of seminars organised at the Law Department of the University of Roma Tre, the volume includes contributions by distinguished scholars and practitioners. It is divided into three parts. Part I introduces the main themes and challenges to be addressed, considering the debate on self-determination of indigenous peoples and the theoretical origins of ‘indigenous sovereignty’. Parts II and III explore the protection of indigenous peoples afforded under the international law rules on human rights and investments respectively. Not only do the contributors to this book critically assess the current international legal framework, but they also suggest ways and methods to utilize such legal instruments towards the protection, promotion and fulfi lment of indigenous peoples’ rights, to contribute to the maintenance of peace and the pursuit of justice in international relations.
Lopez-Claros, Dahl, & Groff: Global Governance and the Emergence of Global Institutions for the 21st Century
Is there any hope for those who despair at the state of the world and the powerlessness of governments to find a way forward? Global Governance and the Emergence of Global Institutions for the 21st Century provides ambitious but reasonable proposals to give our globalized world the institutions of international governance necessary to address effectively the catastrophic risks facing humanity that are beyond national control. The solution, the authors suggest, is to extend to the international level the same principles of sensible governance that exist in well-governed national systems: rule of law, legislation in the common interest, an executive branch to implement such legislation, and courts to enforce it. The best protection is unified collective action, based on shared values and respect for diversity, to implement widely accepted international principles to advance universal human prosperity and well-being.
Goldmann & von Loebenstein: Alles nur geklaut? Zur Rolle juristischer Provenienzforschung bei der Restitution kolonialer Kulturgüter
Matthias Goldmann (Goethe Univ. Frankfurt - Law) & Beatriz von Loebenstein (Goethe Univ. Frankfurt) have posted Alles nur geklaut? Zur Rolle juristischer Provenienzforschung bei der Restitution kolonialer Kulturgüter (Thieves in the Temple? The Role of Law for the Restitution of Cultural Artefacts). Here's the abstract:
Spätestens seit Präsident Macrons Rede in Ouagadougu im Jahr 2017 ist für europäische Staaten die Frage unausweichlich geworden, ob und in welchem Umfang Kulturgüter aus ehemals abhängigen Territorien zu restituieren sind. Gleichzeitig mehren sich Zweifel an der Bedeutung juristischer Provenienzforschung. Da die Prinzipien der Intertemporalität zur Anwendung „ungerechten“ Rechts zwängen, sei eine politische Lösung vorzugswürdig. Doch wohin sollen politische Lösungen führen, sofern Machtungleichgewichte fortbestehen? Dieser Beitrag untersucht daher das Potenzial einer aus postkolonialer Perspektive betriebenen juristischen Provenienzforschung. Diese Perspektive hinterfragt nicht nur faktische Fehlvorstellungen, die einen Einfluss auf die Anwendung des Kolonialrechts hatten. Sie spürt auch seiner Kontingenz und Ambiguität nach, die aus dem untauglichen Versuch resultiert, Unterdrückung durch Recht zu legitimieren. Im Ergebnis stellt sich das Kolonialrecht als weit weniger monolithisch dar. Seine offenen Stellen können in einer Weise geschlossen werden, welche die weitere Entwicklung des Rechts bis in die Gegenwart in die Auslegung einbezieht. Der Beitrag expliziert sodann diese Methode anhand des Pergamonaltars, der Büste der Nofretete sowie von Artefakten aus dem heutigen Namibia. In jedem dieser Fälle bestehen gewichtige Zweifel an der Rechtmäßigkeit des Erwerbs. Die Fallstudien deuten darauf hin, dass die gegenwärtige Rückgabepraxis sich eher nach der kulturellen Bedeutung des Gegenstands für Deutschland denn nach rechtlichen Kriterien richtet. Praktiken der Selbst- und Fremdzuschreibung scheinen die gegenwärtige Rückgabepraxis zu dominieren.
Since President Macron‘s speech in Ouagadougu in 2017, European states can no longer avoid the question as to whether and to what extent cultural artefacts from formerly dependent territories should be restituted. At the same time, doubts about the role of law in this debate increase. Since the principles of intertemporal law would necessitate the application of legal rules from the past considered today as “unjust”, many advocate setting aside the law and finding political solutions. But what to expect from them under prevailing power imbalances? This article therefore examines the potential of legal provenance research inspired by postcolonial theory to inform the restitution debate. This perspective not only questions factual misconceptions underlying the application of colonial law. It also reveals the contingency and ambiguity of colonial law resulting from impossibility of legitimizing oppression by law. As a result, colonial law turns out to be far less monolithic. The resulting ambiguity may give rise to different understandings of the law and enable legal interpretations that take into account the further development of the law up to the present day. The article then explains this method by reference to the Pergamon Altar, the bust of Nefertiti and artefacts from present-day Namibia. In each of these cases, it reveals serious doubts as to the legality of the acquisition. The case studies indicate that current restitution practice is based more on the cultural significance of the object for Germany than on legal criteria. Processes of cultural appropriation and othering seem decisive for current restitution practice.
Roger: The Origins of Informality: Why the Legal Foundations of Global Governance are Shifting, and Why It Matters
The legal foundations of global governance are shifting. In addition to traditional instruments for resolving cross-border problems, such as treaties and formal international organizations, policy-makers are turning increasingly to informal agreements and organizations like the Group of Twenty, the Financial Stability Board, and the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation. A growing number of policy-makers view such weakly-legalized organizations as promising new tools of governance, arguing that informal bodies are faster and more flexible than their formal counterparts, and better-suited to the complex problems raised by deepening interdependence. Yet, equally, political scientists have puzzled over these international organizations. At present, we still know relatively little about these bodies, why they have become so important, and whether they are indeed capable of addressing the immense challenges faced by the global community.
In The Origins of Informality, Charles Roger offers a new way of thinking about informal organizations, presents new data revealing their extraordinary growth over time and across regions, and advances a novel theory to explain these patterns. In contrast with existing approaches, he locates the drivers of informality within the internal politics of states, explaining how major shifts within the domestic political arenas of the great powers have projected outwards and reshaped the legal structure of the global system. Informal organizations have been embraced because they allow bureaucrats in powerful states to maintain autonomy over their activities, and can help politicians to circumvent domestic opponents of their foreign policies. Drawing on original quantitative data, interviews, and archival research, the book analyzes some of the most important institutions governing the global economy, showing how informality has helped domestic actors to achieve their narrow political goals-even when this comes at the expense of the institutions they eventually create.
Foot: China, the UN, and Human Protection: Beliefs, Power, Image
Over a relatively short period of time, Beijing moved from dismissing the UN to embracing it. How are we to make sense of the People's Republic of China's (PRC) embrace of the UN, and what does its engagement mean in larger terms?
This study focuses directly on Beijing's involvement in one of the most contentious areas of UN activity — human protection — contentious because the norm of human protection tips the balance away from the UN's Westphalian state-based profile, towards the provision of greater protection for the security of individuals and their individual liberties. The argument that follows shows that, as an ever-more crucial actor within the United Nations, Beijing's rhetoric and some of its practices are playing an increasingly important role in determining how this norm is articulated and interpreted. In some cases, the PRC is also influencing how these ideas of human protection are implemented. At stake in the questions this book tackles is both how we understand the PRC as a participant in shaping global order, and the future of some of the core norms which constitute that order.
von Bogdandy & Villarreal: Critical Features of International Authority in Pandemic Response: The WHO in the COVID-19 Crisis, Human Rights and the Changing World Order
Armin von Bogdandy (Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law) & Pedro Villarreal (Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law) have posted Critical Features of International Authority in Pandemic Response: The WHO in the COVID-19 Crisis, Human Rights and the Changing World Order. Here's the abstract:
During the COVID-19 pandemic, unprecedented national authority seems the motto of the day, and international authority largely irrelevant. By contrast, the article will show that international authority does play a core role in the global response, and that some governments, by failing to see this, may even be facilitating shifts in the multilateral world order. To this end, the article will first present some essentials to grasp the WHO’s authority, an embattled instance of global governance. It then analyzes three key contributions to the current pandemic response with the respective controversies: Its detailed regulatory framework, its framing of the 2020 health crisis, including its much criticized postponement for a week, and its recommendations on what to do concretely, in particular not to restrict travel which is accused of hindering national governments. The article then moves to two broader questions.The first is how the WHO’s positioning in the clash between more democratic and more authoritarian forces, as it emerges in its recommendations on how to square human rights with quarantines. The second issue relates to its positioning in the current competition between China and the West, in particular the US.
Ayala Corao: Retos De La Pandemia Del Covid-19 Para El Estado De Derecho, La Democracia Y Los Derechos Humanos
Carlos Ayala Corao (Universidad Católica Andrés Bello - Law) has posted Retos De La Pandemia Del Covid-19 Para El Estado De Derecho, La Democracia Y Los Derechos Humanos (The Challenges that the Pandemic Caused by Covid-19 Has Presented for the Rule of Law, Democracy, and Human Rights). Here's the abstract:
Este artículo analiza los retos que la pandemia causada por el Covid-19 ha presentado para el Estado de Derecho, la democracia y los derechos humanos. Los Estados han enfrentado jurídicamente esta pandemia, dictando estados de excepción o emergencia de diversos tipos, con medidas extraordinarias que incluyen el encerramiento domiciliario, el distanciamiento social y la cuarentena de las personas. Estas medias restrictivas han afectado, entre otros, el ejercicio de derechos de reunión pública y las manifestaciones y la celebración de elecciones. Además, se ha visto afectado el funcionamiento normal de los controles de los poderes legislativo y judicial. Las medidas adoptadas además han puesto en evidencia, la necesidad de garantizar el igual acceso a la salud pública y de darle un trato diferenciado a determinados grupos vulnerables. En conclusión: todas las medidas extraordinarias para enfrentar la pandemia deben estar dentro de la Constitución y el Derecho internacional.
This article analyses the challenges that the pandemic caused by Covid-19 has presented for the rule of law, democracy, and human rights. The States have faced this pandemic, issuing states of emergency of various kinds, with extraordinary measures that include stay-at-home orders, social distancing, and the quarantine of people. These restrictive measures have affected, among others, the exercise of rights of public assembly and demonstrations and the holding of elections. Furthermore, the normal functioning of the controls of the legislative and judicial powers has been affected. The measures adopted have also highlighted the need to guarantee equal access to public health and to give differential treatment to certain vulnerable groups. All the extraordinary measures to face the pandemic must be within the Constitution and international law.
Meisels & Waldron: Debating Targeted Killing: Counter-Terrorism or Extrajudicial Execution?
Known terrorists are often targeted for death by the governments of Israel and the United States. Several thousand have been killed by drones or by operatives on the ground in the last twenty years. Is this form of killing justified, when hundreds or thousands of lives are possibly at risk at the hands of a known terrorist? Is there anything about it that should disturb us? Ethically-sound and practical answers to these questions are more difficult to come by than it might seem. Renowned political theorists Jeremy Waldron and Tamar Meisels here defend two competing positions on the legitimacy of targeted killing as used in counterterrorism strategy in this riveting and essential for-and-against book.
The volume begins with a joint introduction, briefly setting out the terms of discussion, and presenting a short historical overview of the practice: what targeted killing is, and how it has been used in which conflicts and by whom. It then hones in on killings themselves and the element of targeting. The authors tackle difficult and infinitely complex subjects, for example the similarities and differences between targeted killing of terrorists and ordinary killings in combat, and they ask whether targeted killing can be regarded as a law enforcement strategy, or as a hybrid between combat and law enforcement. They compare the practice of targeted killing with assassination and the use of death squads. And they consider the likelihood that targeted killing has been or will be abused against insurgents, criminals, or political opponents. Meisels analyzes the assassination by Israeli operatives of nuclear scientists working for regimes hostile to Israel.
Meisels and Waldron carefully consider whether this sort of killing can ever be justified in terms of the danger it, in theory, averts. The conclusions drawn are at once as surprising as they are insightful, cautioning us against a world in which targeted killing is the norm as it proliferates rapidly. This is essential reading not only for students of political and war theory and military personnel, but for anyone interested in or concerned by the future of targeted killing.
Leonard: Law of Nations Theory and the Native Sovereignty Debates in Colonial India
Zak Leonard (Univ. of Chicago) has published Law of Nations Theory and the Native Sovereignty Debates in Colonial India (Law & History Review, Vol. 38, no. 2, pp. 373-407, May 2020). Here's the abstract:
Beginning in the 1840s, high-ranking officials within the East India Company began a concerted effort to confiscate and annex princely states, citing misrule or a default of blood heirs. In response, metropolitan reformers and their Indian allies orchestrated a sustained legalistic defense of native sovereignty in the public sphere and emerged as vocal opponents of colonial expansionism. Adapting concepts put forth by both law of nations theorists and contemporary jurists, they sought to preserve longstanding treaties and defend the princes' exercise of internal sovereignty. The colonial government's failure to adequately define the basis of its modern “paramountcy” invited such creative maneuvering. Reformist opposition to the annexation of Awadh, the dispossession of the Nawab of the Carnatic, and the confiscation of Mysore demonstrates that international law did not simply function as a Eurocentric tool of subordination, but could also provide a bulwark against colonial depredations.
New Issue: Global Trade and Customs Journal
The latest issue of Global Trade and Customs Journal (Vol. 15, no. 6, 2020) is out. Contents include:- Massimo Fabio, Customs Value and Transfer Pricing: WCO and ICC Solutions to Be Adopted by Customs Authorities
- Petra Chao, Circle of Debtors on Importation Defined: Without Responsibilities No Liability
- Michael R. Smiszek, The Loneliest Rule: A Practical Examination of GIR 4, the Harmonized System’s Least Frequently Applied Interpretive Rule
- Phan Thi Thu Hien, How to Take Advantage of Trade Facilitation in Vietnam: A Case Study of Vietnam’s Logistics Firms
New Issue: Review of International Political Economy
The latest issue of the Review of International Political Economy (Vol. 27, no. 3, 2020) is out. Contents include:- Articles
- Milan Babic, Javier Garcia-Bernardo & Eelke M. Heemskerk, The rise of transnational state capital: state-led foreign investment in the 21st century
- Samuel Knafo & Sahil Jai Dutta, The myth of the shareholder revolution and the financialization of the firm
- Florence Dafe, Ambiguity in international finance and the spread of financial norms: the localization of financial inclusion in Kenya and Nigeria
- Jack Seddon, Merchants against the bankers: the financialization of a commodity market
- Vincent Woyames Dreher, Divergent effects of international regulatory institutions. Regulating global banks and shadow banking after the global financial crisis of 2007–2009
- Christian Rauh & Michael Zürn, Authority, politicization, and alternative justifications: endogenous legitimation dynamics in global economic governance1
- Jean-Philippe Thérien & Vincent Pouliot, Global governance as patchwork: the making of the Sustainable Development Goals
- Shahar Hameiri, Institutionalism beyond methodological nationalism? The new interdependence approach and the limits of historical institutionalism
- Alice Evans, Overcoming the global despondency trap: strengthening corporate accountability in supply chains
- Michael E. Odijie, Is traditional industrial policy defunct? Evidence from the Nigerian cement industry
- Sébastien Rioux, Genevieve LeBaron & Peter J. Verovšek, Capitalism and unfree labor: a review of Marxist perspectives on modern slavery
- Commentary
- Adeel Malik & Max Gallien, Border economies of the Middle East: why do they matter for political economy?
New Issue: International Journal of Refugee Law
The latest issue of the International Journal of Refugee Law (Vol. 32, no. 1, March 2020) is out. Contents include:- Azadeh Dastyari & Daniel Ghezelbash, Asylum at Sea: The Legality of Shipboard Refugee Status Determination Procedures
- Pia Zambelli, Knowing Persecution When We See It: Non-State Actors and the Measure of State Protection
- Tom de Boer & Marjoleine Zieck, The Legal Abyss of Discretion in the Resettlement of Refugees: Cherry-Picking and the Lack of Due Process in the EU
- Savitri Taylor & Klaus Neumann, Australia and the Abortive Convention on Territorial Asylum: A Case Study of a Cul de Sac in International Refugee and Human Rights Law
New Issue: Criminal Law Forum
The latest issue of Criminal Law Forum (Vol. 31, no. 2, June 2020) is out. Contents include:- Monika Simmler, The Importance of Placing Blame: Criminal Law and the Stabilization of Norms
- Ricardo Pereira, After the ICC Office of the Prosecutor’s 2016 Policy Paper on Case Selection and Prioritisation: Towards an International Crime of Ecocide?
- Cheluchi Onyemelukwe, Long Overdue: Decriminalisation of Attempted Suicide in Nigeria
- Oana Stancu & Daniel Varona, What about judicial punitiveness? A study of homicide convictions in Spain (2000–2013)
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